


Weapon

by dinosaurdragon



Series: Missing Moments from TWotS [13]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Exposition, Gen, Meet the Adaars, Prologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 09:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14078391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaurdragon/pseuds/dinosaurdragon
Summary: Kumbukani and Adegoke Adaar have always been mercenaries.





	Weapon

**Author's Note:**

> introducing Kumbukani and Adegoke Adaar, my vashoth maybe-inquisitors! they're tall, strong, and young. they can get the job done.

Kumbukani and Adegoke Adaar were born to Tal-Vashoth parents in northern Orlais, and lived most of their young lives on the run from the looming specter of the Qunari. They didn’t understand it any more than they understood the Orlesian humans that paid their parents for—well, usually protection, but sometimes…

There’s a reason even Tal-Vashoth often kept the idea of Tamassrans. Kumbukani and Adegoke were raised as much under the care of a Tal-Vashoth Tamassran as under their parents. They received training to follow in their parents’ footsteps as mercenaries.

Kumbukani liked it. Fighting suited her, and she trained with any weapon she could get her hands on. She wasn’t a master of any one style, not really, but she was damn good with everything. This didn’t change when she proved to be a mage; she simply began to incorporate the magic into her fighting.

Besides, the Templars were already far from fond of apostates or qunari. What they’d do to a qunari apostate was… If she couldn’t fight her way out, she probably wouldn’t live to see whatever Circle they would claim to take her to. It was best if she knew how to fight without magic just as much as with it. A sword and shield would be far less suspicious than a staff.

Adegoke, though. He didn’t hate fighting, per se. It’s hard to hate something that’s so integral to a culture one loves and respects, and Adegoke loved being Vashoth. Still, he wanted nothing so much as to find a home, a place of his own that he would not need to leave. Somewhere quiet. Maybe a small town.

But Orlais didn’t care for qunari, be they Vashoth or not. So he was a mercenary. It was all he could be.

They took whatever jobs called for them. Their parents died when Kumbukani was sixteen; four years later, Adegoke was taller and broader than her, a little brother only in age. Never did they take jobs separately; never did one desire to leave the other behind.

They made quite the name for themselves. Not enough to let them begin even dreaming of settling down somewhere, and not enough that everyone looked over their youth…but enough to get by. Western Orlais’ minor nobility spread word of their competence enough to give them the income they needed for food and gear. Shelter was hit and miss, but such was life as a merc.

That’s why, despite Kumbukani’s misgivings about the distance from their home territory, they didn’t throw away the letter from some Dalish Keeper asking for their protection.

Kumbukani wanted to, at first. She didn’t know a lot about the Dalish, but she knew that the Orlesian nobles had complained a few times about wild forest elves doing all manner of things. Then again, those same nobles also complained about ‘ox-men’ who overcharged for doing ‘nothing.’ A grain or seven of salt was probably needed when considering their opinions.

Adegoke, though. Adegoke was intrigued. He’d always been more curious than his sister, and it sometimes got them in trouble, but, well. “Doesn’t that name sound familiar to you?” he asked, pointing at where the Keeper had signed the letter. He sounded out the name in his head slowly before saying it, but… Frankly, it didn’t make any sense. Those letters should not be in that order. It didn’t matter. He was probably wrong no matter what, so he gave up. “I swear I’ve heard it somewhere.”

Kumbukani shrugged, only glancing at the paper. “How would I know? It’s a Dalish name. How many Dalish have you ever heard of? It’s not like they’re out doing shit that matters to anyone but them.”

“Except for the Hero of Ferelden. He was Dalish,” Adegoke argued.

“Was he?” Kumbukani put her head in her hand and swirled the ale in her mug. “I didn’t know that.”

“Theron M… Uh, Maheel?” Dalish names were confusing. “Ma-something. I think there was another Dalish with him, too. Hard to remember. Most people only care about that Fereldan Queen and the Warden-Commander.”

“Yeah. You know why.”

“Yeah.”

A pause. 

“So, we gonna take it?”

“Fuck it. Sure. With all those human mages getting out, we can probably still find work that direction even if this ends up being a scam.”

They left for Sahrnia the next day. Hopefully this Vir’era was worth the trouble.


End file.
